Florida Space Coast

Next stop was the Space Coast of Florida where we stayed in Cocoa. Our highlight of this stop was watching a SpaceX Falcon 9 lift-off on a mission to resupply the International Space Station.

We watched the lift-off about 16 miles from the launch pad. It took a while for the sound to reach us, but it is an amazing thing to watch and we recommend it to everybody. Just beware, they do not always launch on time or even on the same day as scheduled.

Several minutes after the launch, the first stage’s return to earth was heralded with 3 sonic booms. Unfortunately, this one was not a perfect landing, as the vehicle missed the pad and landed in the ocean. From our vantage point it was impossible to tell.

We also toured the Kennedy Space Center. Above is the space shuttle Atlantis. A whole building is devoted to the shuttle and what the program accomplished for our nation.

This is the Saturn V rocket. It is massive! It was used to send astronauts to the moon. When thinking about the design team that designed and built the Apollo program we are amazed at how much they accomplished with the tools they had.

Today, your cell phone has more computer power than all of NASA back in 1969 when it sent two astronauts to the moon. Those machines could perform a couple hundred thousand addition operations per second, with their total memory capacity in the megabyte range.

As for the Apollo Guidance Computer, it was a machine that had 64 kilobytes of memory and operated at 0.043MHz. However, that computer had one huge advantage over our smart phones and Windows computers. It did not freeze up and have to be continually restarted.

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge is located partially within the boundaries of the Kennedy Space Center and just north of it. We explored the area just north of the Space Center by driving a 7 mile loop road to see birds, and by kayaking in the Indian River Lagoon. The wildlife refuge has more than 300 species of birds, but we didn’t see quite that many. Above is a Great Blue Heron taking flight.

A flock of Wood Storks flying over us. While kayaking in Indian River Lagoon, we had “up close and personal” experiences with a spotted ray and several feeding bottle nose dolphins. Feeding dolphins are incredibly fast and can turn on a dime. It was amazing to watch from as close as 10 feet away. No pictures from the kayak ride; I don’t have the courage to take my good camera with me in the kayak. After this experience, though, I did decide that next time I’ll take my old camera for on-the-water photos.

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We toured Daytona International Speedway. No photo can capture the immensity of this racing venue. We were told 250,000 people watch the Daytona 500 each year, from the stands and the infield, a mind-boggling crowd. The turns are banked at 31 degrees, which is definitely steeper than we would be comfortable driving our truck on. We rode on the race track past the finish line at a mild 9 degree bank and all slid to the bottom of the bench seat (in a tourist tram).

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Here is 2018’s winning car. When they said it was in the same condition as it was when it left Victory Lane, they meant it — notice the confetti still stuck to the car!

We had a great time in Cocoa; from spaceships to race cars to wildlife there is lots to do. However, we were not able to camp on the beach and really missed having a beach for regular walks.